Backes puts onus on finding his game
Bruins forward David Backes has a plan for when teammate David Pastrnak arrives at training camp this weekend.
“We’ll get that kid across the sea and make him do all the testing, hopefully with all of us watching, a little hazing for the like 20-, 30-minute holdout,” Backes said yesterday after the Bruins began training camp with their off-ice testing. “So we’ll give him a hard time for that. So it’s great to see everyone will be here and we’ll go full power into the season.”
Pastrnak was an unsigned restricted free agent before signing a six-year, $40 million contract yesterday. He will travel from his home in the Czech Republic and miss the first practices today at Warrior Ice Arena.
And jokes like Backes made are what makes him valuable to a Bruins team that seems to annually undergo a reduction in the average age. Backes, 33, a former captain of the St. Louis Blues in his second year here, knows his teammates can lean on him for guidance, motivation and camaraderie.
But for Backes, entering the second year of the fiveyear, $30 million contract, it’s a necessity to increase his production. It’ll be vital for the Bruins, in their attempt to build off their first playoff berth in three seasons, to get more than the 17 goals and 21 assists they got from him last season.
Backes, who had 21 goals and 24 assists in his last year with the Blues, believes his sophomore season here will be easier now that he’s more accustomed to the Hub.
“I don’t know if it’s something to prove. I think it’s more of a focus on playing hockey and being the best hockey player I can,” Backes said. “While I wouldn’t say that wasn’t my focus last year, I also had some peripheral items, changing cities for the first time in 10 years, to take care of. I think those things are taken care of and now we can play hockey and that’s going to be the focus.”
Backes might also benefit from a schedule that isn’t being tightened by last season’s World Cup of Hockey, or any Olympic Games.
“I think the schedule not being as compressed lends itself to playing a heavier harder game on a regular basis, where you’re going to have time to recuperate and regenerate in between to go do it again,” he said. “With a bigger body that likes to play in the hard areas, that time is certainly welcome.”
Last season, Backes’ bigger body played mostly on the wing. Coach Bruce Cassidy said yesterday that Backes will start on the wing again, despite success playing some center between Sean Kuraly and Noel Acciari at the tail end of last season.
“It could be a bit of a hybrid at times. But right now, probably more right wing than center. Again in 10 days that could change,” Cassidy said.
Backes said he has no problem filling in on the wing again if that’s what the Bruins need because he’s “open to whatever helps” the team win and he knows the Bruins’ depth has improved.
With Cassidy preaching an even faster pace for the Bruins than they played during his 18-8-1 stint in the regular season as interim coach and in the playoffs, Backes knows that might not play to his strengths. He also knows successful teams need guys that can do things other than fly end to end, and that’s where he plans to make his mark.
“He’s an offensive-minded guy, we’re pushing the pace and being a good skating team is what’s going to be our M.O.,” Backes said. “But we’ve got a couple guys, myself included, that want to get the puck in there and never let it out of there until it’s in the back of the net and implementing that into the game, too, to make us tough to play against is something that isn’t going to be lost in the shuffle.”